They’re having a “Stop the Cuts” rally on the steps of the Capitol in Albany this morning. One featured attraction will be Daniel Sisto of the Healthcare Association of New York – along with a chorus of barking seals from the Legislature.

The issue, as you might imagine, is Gov. Spitzer’s proposed health-care budget for the coming fiscal year.

It contains no cuts whatsoever, just a necessary reduction in an unsustainable rate of spending growth. But, to hear the howls, you’d think Spitzer wants to load old folks onto ice floes and send them down the Hudson River.

There is a multimillion-dollar “Stop the Cuts” ad campaign under way across the state – who can miss it? – and it’s financed with health-care dollars recycled from dues from members of hospital professional associations and unions.

Besides Sisto, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno will be speaking, along with the relevant legislative minions – all of them long since bought and paid for by the health-care industry.

It’s just another day for special-interest pleading in Albany.

But Sisto is worth a closer look today, because his group is among the loudest in crying poverty.

So, how poor is the Healthcare Association of New York?

Not so poor that it couldn’t pay Sisto $353,477 in salary, and another $117,757 in benefits, back in 2004, according to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

Or that it couldn’t afford Sisto deputy Raymond Sweeney’s $197,298 salary, and his $41,300 benefit package.

No wonder Sisto is so concerned about Spitzer’s proposed economies, modest though they may be.